This station can also be seen on Shaw Cable channel 7 and in high definition on digital channel 213. On Shaw Direct, the channel is available on 347 (Classic) or 022 (Advanced), and in high definition on channel 014 (Classic) or 514 (Advanced). This station is also available on Bell TV channel 241.

In 1999, a letter bomb exploded in the CKEM newsroom, injuring the assignment editor and one of the general assignment reporters. The station simulcasted the Live@Five and News@Six newscasts from Calgary sister station CKAL-TV, while police investigated the bombing. Local Edmonton newscasts resumed later on in the evening. Raymond Neal Best was charged with attempted murder and possession of explosive substances, in connection with the A-Channel letter bomb, and the attempted letter bombings aimed at both Calgary and Edmonton police chiefs.

On September 17, 2003, several employees who were members of the Canadian Energy and Paperworkers Local 1900 went on strike over worry of jobs being lost, wages, and jobs being moved to Calgary (including master control operations). The strike lasted 166 days. CKEM's master control facilities moved to the CKAL studios in Calgary in late 2003.

In 2004, Craig Media announced a deal to sell the A-Channel stations to CHUM Limited. The sale was approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on November 19, 2004, and became official on December 1. On February 3, 2005, CHUM announced that the A-Channel stations would be relaunched under the Citytv brand (which originated at CITY-TV in Toronto) by that fall, effectively turning Citytv into a television system; the changes took effect on August 2 of that year.

On July 12, 2006, Bell Globemedia (later known as CTVglobemedia, and now Bell Media) announced plans to take over CHUM Limited. On June 8, 2007, the CRTC announced its approval of CTVglobemedia's purchase of CHUM Limited, but added a condition that CTVglobemedia must sell off CHUM's Citytv stations (including CKEM) to another buyer while keeping the A-Channel stations since the company already owned CTV owned-and-operated station CFRN-TV (channel 3) in the same market.[1] The following Monday, it was announced that Rogers Communications would buy the Citytv system's stations. The sale was approved by the CRTC on September 28, 2007, and was finalized on one month later on October 31.

CKEM presently broadcasts 10 hours of locally produced newscasts each week, all consisting of 2 hours each weeknight of Dinner Television, a spin-off of City's local morning news program franchise Breakfast Television.

On July 12, 2006, the station's local newscasts (with the exception of CityNews at Noon) were immediately cancelled after years of ratings struggle in the Edmonton market. The local newscasts were replaced by a half-hour newsmagazine program called Your City at 6 and 11 p.m., along with a national and international newscast called CityNews International (produced at CITY-TV's studios in Toronto, Ontario). On January 19, 2010, CityNews at Noon, Your City and CityNews International were cancelled as part of Citytv's corporate restructuring and concurrent layoffs.[2]

On May 7, 2015, Rogers announced that as part of further cuts, Breakfast Television in Edmonton would be cancelled on May 19, 2015. It was replaced by Dinner Television, a new, two-hour evening program hosted by Jason Strudwick, which does not feature original news reporting. An encore of the previous day's Dinner Television with on-screen news, weather, and traffic updates replaced Breakfast Television in its morning timeslot.[3][4][5]

On May 26, 2010, CKEM began testing its digital signal with the broadcast of a test loop. On June 29 of that year, the station began broadcasting regular programming over its digital signal.[7] On August 31, 2011, when Canadian television stations in CRTC-designated mandatory marketstransitioned from analogue to digital broadcasts,[8] the station's digital signal relocated from UHF channel 51 to channel 17. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers originally displayed CKEM-DT's virtual channel as 51.1.